


A World Without Color

by ComingandGoingByBubble



Category: A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder - Lutvak/Freedman
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 16:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16836487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComingandGoingByBubble/pseuds/ComingandGoingByBubble
Summary: Phoebe,” she started, her voice shaking.  “Come on… don’t die on me, please!” she begged.





	A World Without Color

When the carriage had flipped over, Sibella had only been thinking of Phoebe.

Of protecting Phoebe, of saving Phoebe from harm’s way, of having her stay safe and Sibella take whatever pain came her way.

But once the screaming in her ears stopped, and the world stopped spinning, it was Sibella who found herself to be the one unscathed by the accident.

The driver was dead, or at least Sibella thought so judging by the blood running down his temple. Sibella didn’t really pay him any mind. She was searching for Phoebe. 

Where was she? She had just been there, right besides her. They had been talking about.. something. Sibella forgot now. It was trivial anyways. 

She tried to stand, in order to cover more ground, but found her feet unsteady, and so Sibella crawled across the dirt, ruining her red dress. 

She found Phoebe, a few feet away from her, her hair gave her away instantly. Sibella moved towards her, her hands caked in dirt, the sun blinding her as it shone down from the blue sky.

A blue sky. How was it that they had crashed on such a day as this, with a blue sky and everything?

Sibella would never know. 

She reached Phoebe, her breath heavy, as it had taken her more exertion that she had thought to reach her. Maybe the accident had left her with some damage, if anything it was more shock and fatigue. 

Yes, that was it. Sibella was tired, and in shock. 

How could she not be? One minute, the world was fine, the next it was flipped upside down and tossed into the sea.

No one was out here, but her and Phoebe and the dead driver.

Monty was at home, expecting their arrival soon. 

Sibella’s eyes landed on Phoebe, after having brushed her own hair out of her eyes. 

Part of the carriage was on top of her. Sibella took a closer look and nearly screamed.

No, she had been wrong. It wasn’t on top of Phoebe, it was lodged into her delicate skin, pierced right through her ivory, slight body like it was a knife through a slab of butter. Blood pooled at the sides of the wound, staining Phoebe’s dark blue dress. With each painstaking breath Phoebe took, more blood emerged. 

Sibella’s vision spun. Her heart sped up. Suddenly, she felt sick. She wanted to vomit, to scream, to cry, to get help, to run away, to save Phoebe.

Her chest tightened. Her breaths turned into gasps. She found herself blindly fumbling towards Phoebe, finding her hands and grasping them tightly. Tears made Phoebe look like a blur of colors and blood. Nothing but her smile and her blood.

“Phoebe-?” Sibella’s voice was nothing but a squeak. 

Phoebe moved her head a bit, just so. Her eyes fluttered open. The smile grew wider on her face. 

“Si-Sibella,” she croaked out, her voice faint. Sibella grasped her hands tighter, feeling that Phoebe’s hands were trembling. 

“Phoebe, I’m going to- I’ll go- I-I-I-” Sibella stuttered, tears pricking at her eyes. Her chest tightened again as she saw Phoebe take a breath, the piece of carriage still lodged into her stomach, and more blood.

God, there was so much blood.

Sibella had never seen so much. Never in her life. It was so much, so sticky, so… so red. It was staining everything. The ground, Phoebe, the dress, even Phoebe’s beautiful, pale porcelain skin was turning red. Sibella’s hands were red. The hem of her dress was stained red. 

The sky turned red too, at one point, as did Phoebe, but Sibella was sure that that was just the shock. 

Everything felt red. Her words, her breaths, her gasps, her tears. 

“Phoebe,” Sibella tried again, nearly tasting blood in her own mouth, blood that matched Phoebe’s.

Could she bleed out too, could she bleed red like Phoebe was, just so that she didn’t have to live in a world without her… a world without Phoebe was torture.

A world without Phoebe was a world without color. 

Sibella gripped her hands tightly, hard. 

“Phoebe,” she started, her voice shaking. “Come on… don’t die on me, please!” she begged. She moved so that Phoebe’s head was resting against her lap. One hand reached down to try and stop the bleeding, as if there was any point to it.The other hand wrapped around Phoebe’s hand, tightly. 

“Phoebe, please, please don’t die,” Sibella started to cry. “Please don’t- Monty and I, we, we need you. We love you so much,” Tears poured down her cheeks, staining Phoebe’s hair. They glistened like snowflakes and then disappeared as if they had never been there.

“I love you,” she confessed to her in a soft whisper. Sibella kissed her temple then, “I love you so much,” Sibella murmured. “Please don’t go…. I can’t go on without you. I’m so- so frightened, Phoebe.”

Phoebe gripped her hand tighter. 

Sibella tried to say more, but her words failed her.

They sat there in silence. With the dirt, and the overturned carriage, the lonely road, and the dead driver.

“Sibella, I’m not afraid,” Phoebe whispered softly, suddenly, looking up at her. She looked so calm, so truthful, so serene.

Sibella wanted to scream. Wanted to shake her and tell her not to be so calm, not to be so accepting and ready for death. 

Phoebe was good, Phoebe was pure… Death couldn’t take her now, could he? She didn’t deserve to die.

Sibella leaned her head down, so that her forehead was touching Phoebe’s. 

“You don’t deserve to die,” Sibella told her, crying, “You’re so good, my love. So pure, so loving. I should die in your place.”

“No.”

Phoebe kissed her then. A short kiss. A red kiss. One with blood on her lips, blood in her hair, blood in her veins, blood was everywhere.

Phoebe slumped against her afterwards, but Sibella refused to let go. She kept her eyes closed as she had during the kiss, trying to preserve the memory, to keep it alive, to keep Phoebe alive.

If she opened her eyes, she was afraid of what she’d see.

More red? More blood? Death itself?

Sibella started to shake at the thought.

Her mind told her that Phoebe was dead. Her arms could feel her lying there, not moving. Her ears only heard her shuddering breaths and gasps, not Phoebe’s.

Her eyes begged her to open them, to see, to face it.

Her heart broke in two, drowning in it, in the red, in the blood, in all of the death.

They had just been going back home… back to Monty. That’s all she and Phoebe had wanted, to go home, back to Monty. 

Tears fell from her closed eyes. Shudders took her then. Sobs came after. 

The screams came later. They made no sense. If red could have been a noise, Sibella would have categorized her screams as red. Bright red. Crimson even. Bleeding red screams to match Phoebe’s bleeding dead body. Like Phoebe’s blood. Phoebe’s blood that had been slipping out of her… that had stained anything and everything.

Sibella’s eyes opened unwillingly then, only to wipe away the tears from her face.

She pulled back and saw only red.


End file.
